T-Mobile USA growth slips in Q4, but mix improves

T-Mobile USA Inc. didn’t do as well during 2006’s fourth quarter as it did in 2005, seeing a substantial drop in the number of net new customers that it brought in during the industry’s biggest-selling quarter.
T-Mobile USA said it added 901,000 net new subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2006, fewer than the 1.39 million it added during the same time in 2005. Most of those additions, a total of 783,000, were retail postpaid customers, down year-over-year from the 911,000 customers the carrier added in 2005’s fourth quarter.
T-Mobile USA did manage to do a better job of hanging onto its postpaid customers, though, with postpaid churn dropping from 2.3 percent in the final quarter of 2005 to 2.1 percent in the same period in 2006. Total churn for the quarter was flat year-over-year at 2.9 percent.
T-Mobile USA added 3.4 million customers last year, down from the 4.4 million subscribers it added during the previous year. It did improve its customer mix over the year, though, with 83 percent of its customer additions coming from the postpaid side, up from 70 percent in 2005. T-Mobile USA now has a customer base of more than 25 million, a 15-percent increase in its customer base during the year.
The carrier only released its customer numbers; T-Mobile’s financial results are scheduled to be released on March 1. However, its parent company Deutsche Telekom AG did issue a profit warning, its second in six months. The company cut its forecast of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to $19 billion, from previous expectations of between $19.7 billion and $20.2 billion. DT cited a tough, competitive market and negative impacts from foreign exchange rates when it changed its forecast. Investors responded by sending the company’s stock down more than 4 percent.